is not yet pointed out. For, as BOTH thefe events are fuppofed to be future, depending on the time of a child's knowing good and evil, in respect to one, and in relation to the other, not only upon this, but even on his very birth; neither of thefe events could then be any more a PRESENT fign to Ahaz of the predicted event, than even the MIRACLE itself, which was to happen at fo very diftant a period afterwards.

Some few other commentators, as learned and ingenious as any of their predeceffors, for fo undoubtedly they all were, however they may have mifunderstood the Prophet upon this

occafion, juftly conceiving, I fuppofe, these to be very forced and farfetched interpretations of the Prophet's meaning, and at the fame time, wishing to preserve the LITERAL prediction of the miraculous event, which could only relate to our blessed Saviour, and the declaration of which, fo many hundred years before the event, muft therefore be an INDISPUTABLE PROOF of HIS MIRACULOUS CONCEPTION, - have endeavoured to find other folutions of the difficulties, which had 'till then attended the explanation of these prophecies.

These commentators, if I underftand them right, fuppofe, that the

fourteenth verfe, "Behold! a virgin fhall conceive, &c." contains one propofition and prophecy, totally feparate and diftinct from that immediately afterwards given, in the two following verfes. Firft. They confider the former, as a literal prediction of our Saviour's birth, and therefore, a fign of the truth of the other prophecy, which the Prophet had juft before given; affuring Ahaz, that the kings of Syria and Ifrael fhould not fucceed in their defign against Jerufalem. Secondly. They conceive the latter, to relate merely to the land being freed from thofe two kings, before the Prophet's

fon

fon then living, fhould know to refufe the evil, and choose the good.

But it is evident, that thefe interpreters,* in endeavouring to avoid the incongruity of the former commentators, in the admiffion of a TYPE, have (if they have all imagined the prediction of our Saviour's birth, to be a fign, or confirmation of the truth of the firft prophecy} run into that very abfurdity, to avoid which, I fuppofe, was the caufe of the firft adoption of the

idea

* Dr. BENSON, and according to him, Bishop CHANDLER, whofe work I have never feen, Dr. RENNICOT, &c.

idea of a type. This abfurdity is, either the making one event, which is to be long fubfequent to another, a SIGN of the occurrence of the former; or, confounding the PREDICTION of a miracle, with the PERFORMANCE of one. A miracle, when wrought, muft always be a fign of God's power, and may likewife be the fign of any other event, to which he chooses to appoint it. But a miracle predicted, can no more be a fign of another event, 'till the miracle is wrought, and thereby the prophecy is accomplished, than the Prophet's mere declaration of the event; which muft certainly owe all the conviction of the truth, which others feel of it, to their